


Once you eliminate the Hunter, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth

by Mafy_mod



Series: You're My Bounty [4]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: "hate equals love", Akashi may actually be an idiot, Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, Assassination Attempt(s), Confessions, M/M, Mild Blood, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-20 14:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20676665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mafy_mod/pseuds/Mafy_mod
Summary: Kuroko has come to a standstill. He wants to move forward but always finds himself being pulled back by his past. He wants to open up to Akashi but the awkwardness he now feels when around him always seems to get in the way.When Mayuzumi, his "older brother" in the dark matters of Bounties, suddenly appears around the Bounty Hunter school, Kuroko must decide which of the two "hates" he truly wants to keep in his life: the now unrestrained "hate" Akashi feels towards him or the "hate" that still binds him to his family.





	1. Once you eliminate the Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone!
> 
> The Bounty Hunter AU is back in one more short fic~ After the massive cliffhanger from the previous part, you can already guess that some big things are about to go down in this instalment of You're My Bounty. I don't want to give away spoilers, but please keep your safety belt well tucked in, calling it a bumpy ride or a rollercoaster of emotions would be an understatement... *shudders* Ugh, I can already feel your screams coming at my way >.>'
> 
> I hope you enjoy, nevertheless!

Again and again - that which we dislike happens again and again. It’s out of our hands, it’s out of our control, we can’t do anything about it. It’s there. Period.

But once it’s gone…

Do we notice it’s missing because we disliked it so much? Or do we miss it because we didn’t dislike it in the first place?

-.-

"Tetsuya…" purred Akashi, so very softly, so very gently. The bed underneath them creaked with the shifting of bodies, messy bedsheets brushed against skin. "Tetsuya, wake up." 

"Nn… Go away…" groaned Kuroko, his voice slurred due to tiredness and the spell of sleepiness. He took a hold of the bedsheets with awkward motions and tried to tug them upwards, so he could hide his head and, maybe, be allowed to keep on resting. Kuroko felt like groaning again when another pair of hands didn't allow his strategy to be successful. 

"I'll go away later," said Akashi after a brief chuckle. Slowly, he crawled closer to the laid down bluenette, a mischievous smirk always present on his lips - there was no longer any knife hidden underneath the pillow, the most he could fear out of it was another punch in the gut. "But now you need to wake up. We have things to do." 

"I have… sleep to do…" mumbled Kuroko with a sleepy sigh. With sluggish movements, he turned his body around, one more useless attempt to escape the red-haired demon.

"If you don't get up right now, I'll…" whispered Akashi, unhurriedly leaned his upper body closer to Kuroko. His lips were so very close to the bluenette's ear that he could taste the sweet heat coming from his pale skin. "...add 25% more math-related topics on today's tutoring."

"..." After a long stretch of utter silence, Kuroko suddenly fully pulled the bedsheets down and turned his body back around. His face was as expressionless as a wooden board. "Today we begin our school holidays. Why would we have tutoring?" 

"Tsk!" With a loud click of his tongue, Akashi straightened his body and sat down on the bed, his arms crossed over his chest in an obvious display of pouting.

"I'm not so sleepy that I don't even know what day it is, Akashi-kun," sighed Kuroko, gently rubbing his still-very-much-sleepy eyes. "Why don't you also give yourself a break from lock-picking studies?"

"I'm fond of daily schedules," said Akashi, still in a quite poutish way. "I can't declare my day started without a good lock-picking warm-up exercise and the possibility of being killed after stepping inside of your den. It's similar to jogging after waking up, at this point."

"Please go jogging in someone else's room," deadpanned Kuroko, albeit inwardly sighing in exhaustion. Wake up visits from Akashi were always so tiresome. They were really tiresome but… "But be aware that they would report you to Shirogane-san rather than go study with you afterwards."

"You're the only one I would ever think of breaking and entering, Tetsuya," said Akashi, a brief smile twisting his lips upwards.

"Is that so…?" softly mumbled Kuroko, withdrawing his body further beneath the bedsheets once again when he felt his cheekbones suddenly heating up. After a while though, he awkwardly cleared his throat and sat up on his bed. "Um… Akashi-kun, since we're on break at the moment… would you like to go-"

"Hey, Tetsu! Are you awake already?" loudly yelled Aomine from the other side of the room's door, a strong banging accompanying the cacophony. "Satsuki and I were planning on going on a shopping trip to the town centre before leaving. My mom's been nagging me all year to get her some treats. If I don't get them, she'll probably throw away all of my porn mags!"

_ She should burn them instead…,  _ grudgingly mumbled Kuroko in the back of his head. Aomine sometimes had such bad timing that it could nearly be called an unwanted skill.

"Give me- Mmhn!!" started Kuroko but a hand suddenly covered his mouth and pushed his back against the wall. When he looked at Akashi with an inquiring arched eyebrow, all Kuroko got was a hushing movement with his index finger.

"Damn, is he up and about already?" grumbled Aomine, his voice clearly annoyed at the fact. "I thought since he had successfully passed his exams and completed his 1st year, Akashi would let him get a break… I guess I underestimated his Spartan teaching methods, the freaking demonic asshole doesn't even leave him alone during school holidays…"

After a couple of seconds, the stomping footsteps faded away - the hand covering Kuroko's mouth remained, however.

"Demonic asshole…?" repeated Akashi after releasing a quick snort at those words. "I'll give Daiki an upgrade of that one once school starts again. Maybe by burning the collection he keeps in his room."

_ I no longer know who I synchronise better with: Aomine-kun's views of Akashi-kun, or Akashi-kun's evil schemes,  _ inwardly confessed Kuroko, chuckling inaudible at his own thoughts (mainly because of Akashi's hand, to be more precise).

"What were you about to say, Tetsuya?" asked Akashi, gently removing the hand pressing down on the bluenette's small, soft lips. He turned his body slightly around, adjusting his sitting position so he could face Kuroko more easily.

"Ah… Um, never mind," said Kuroko with a certain shyness. He readily started getting up from the mass of bedsheets, trying his best to keep his rosy cheeks far away from those all-seeing heterochromatic eyes. "Just like you wished, I'm up. Have your morning requisites been fulfilled now?"

"Yes, seeing you acting all cranky with me has ticked the last entry in the list," acknowledged Akashi, a small smile on his features as he observed the slight grumpy expression that could be found in Kuroko's expressionless demeanour if one was to pay close attention to it. And no one paid it more attention than him, that Akashi was sure of. "Since both you and Daiki went out of your way to remind me that there's no classes or exams to study for nor extra training to hone skills until school starts once again… How about we go have brunch at Maji Burger?"

"Free vanilla milkshake…?" innocently asked Kuroko, sideways peeking at the redhead with hopeful, almost begging, teal eyes.

"Shouldn't you be the one treating me as a thank you for helping you with your studies throughout the entire school year?" pointed out Akashi, an eyebrow slightly arched at the guts Kuroko had. When he saw his shoulders slumping down in defeat, he got up from the bed and placed himself in front of Kuroko, his hand meeting with silky blue strands. "The first milkshake can be on me, yes. You worked very hard these last few months, Tetsuya. Good job."

“T-Thank you for all of your support,” said Kuroko, offering an awkward bow at the redhead due to the hand still present on the top of his head. “It might be selfish of me to ask… but I’ll be counting on you next year too. Um… I’ll get dressed now so we can go.”

“I’ll wait for you at the main gate,” acknowledged Akashi with a quick nod of his head. He departed his hand from those silky strands and turned around on his heels, leisurely walking towards the front door.

“...you didn’t need to leave just because I’m changing…” mumbled Kuroko to himself after Akashi disappeared behind a softly closed door. He released a tired sigh and dropped his body to a crouched position. “Ahh… Why is this so awkward…? Why must  _ I _ feel so awkward?”

-.-

“I’m sorry for making you wait,” said Kuroko, giving a short run towards the main gate and the single student quietly standing next to it. His face was even more expressionless than usual. “I nearly bumped into Aomine-kun and Momoi-san when getting out of the dorm so I had to be a little bit creative on how to get here before them and without being seen.”

“This day is starting to sound very much like the plot of a novel,” chuckled Akashi, waiting for Kuroko to stand beside him before both starting to walk towards the outside grounds and the town centre. “Star-crossed lovers that need to sneak around to meet, parents that are against the relationship, one entering and breaking into the other’s room and then pretending to not be there when a sudden interruption appears. Will there come a day where I have to hide inside of your closet?”

“I think you’ve been reading too much recently, Akashi-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko once again. “Maybe you should give romance novels a small pause and focus on other themes. What about some comedy? You could use some lessons on how to tell jokes.”

“I read those too, from time to time,” acknowledged Akashi, trying his best to not laugh at the bluenette’s biting words. “But I have a certain fondness of plots along the lines of the girlfriend going out of her way to wake up her sleepyhead of a boyfriend. Much like I do.”

“If you had called me the girlfriend, I would have gut-punched you right here and now,” warned Kuroko, throwing a sideways glare at the redhead. “Rather than read more books, you should go watch some stand-up comedy. I don’t feel like being the straight man for a person with absolutely no skills at trying to be funny.”

“I think someone could really use some vanilla milkshakes right now,” laughed Akashi, rolling his eyes around just the slightest. “What got you in such a bad mood today, Tetsuya? It can’t have been my morning visit. Or could it be you’re disappointed that I took the lead and asked you out for a walk before you had the chance to?”

“Maybe your funny bone was switched by an annoying bone at birth,” deadpanned Kuroko, though there was a small twitch to his nose. “But I’ll stop being salty if the free milkshake rises to two.”

“It’s a deal, then,” accepted Akashi, throwing a satisfied smile at the bluenette. Side by side, the two of them entered the local Maji Burger joint, already quite packed with people due to close by lunch hour. “Could you go find an empty table while I go ask for our orders? Putting you in the line when there are so many people around wouldn’t be very advisable.”

“Any preference for your seat?” asked Kuroko, ignoring that small jab in regards to his lack of presence.

“You can choose,” said Akashi, turning around on his heels and walking over to the line that had the least people in it.

“Haa…” Releasing a soft sigh, Kuroko remained in the same spot as he observed Akashi walking away. With a pinkish blush colouring his cheeks, he whispered, “I’m in a bad mood because you can read my mind so easily. I’m afraid one day you’ll read more than you sho- Mmhn!!”

Without any warning, a hand covered Kuroko’s mouth for the second time that morning, one of his arms also getting tightly locked behind his back. With a swift pull to his limb, he easily lost his balance and was quickly dragged back outside of the fast-food restaurant. Curiously, none of the onlookers noticed both his struggling and the person that was forcibly taking him away.

“Shush down now, Tetsuya. I just want to talk to you.”

“...!” Kuroko immediately recognised the voice whispering in his ear.

He remembered it quite well - the voice that was always around as he grew up, the voice that would tuck him in bed when he was still able to sleep at night or would console him if he woke up due to a nightmare caused by the previous kills. The voice that also indicated his Bounty parents’ presence.

“It’s been a while,” said Mayuzumi Chihiro, slowly removing his hand out of the bluenette’s mouth once he got the both of them inside of a small back alley. “I guess, what? Over a year now?”

“Mayu-nii…” breathed Kuroko, slowly turning his head around to take a look at the older male that had grown up with him with an older brother-like role - Mayuzumi Chihiro, his mother’s favourite and oldest apprentice. Kuroko couldn’t help but let his heart beat against his ribcage as if a pneumatic hammer. “Why are you…?”

“I told you, I just want to talk,” repeated Mayuzumi, shrugging his shoulders in a disinterested way. He released Kuroko’s arm and neatly adjusted his clothes, slightly dishevelled after all the struggling and dragging. “But not here. It’s far too suspicious. Let’s move to another location.”

“But…” With a certain hesitation, Kuroko threw a long glance to Maji Burger, inwardly debating with himself over if he should disappear without providing Akashi with any warning or if he should run as fast as he could to him. He gulped down hard. “If it’s related to my parents, I’m not going with you. Did Mom told you to come and get me, whichever methods you’d have to use?”

“I can’t deny she did or didn’t,” casually answered Mayuzumi, once again giving a small shrug. “But I’m of the opinion that if she wants you back that badly, she should be the one coming to get you. She’s the mother, I’m just a shadow that follows her around whenever there’s no good light novel to read. Are you coming or not? There’s a maid café at the end of this street. You can quickly go back to your friend once we finish talking.”

“...” After long silent seconds simply staring and observing Mayuzumi, Kuroko gave a small nod with his head. “Okay…”


	2. Whatever remains

“How are they…?” asked Kuroko, his eyes stuck to his cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. He picked up the spoon resting next to the cup and slowly dipped one of the fluffy sweets deeper into the hot beverage to soak it in even more sugar.

“Heh…” snorted Mayuzumi, rolling his eyes around at that question. “They sent a bunch of assassins to kill you and your first question is ‘how are they’? Your personality really isn’t suitable for the underworld, Tetsuya. Even if your skills tell a different story.”

“I just had particularly good teachers throughout my life,” pointed out Kuroko, putting the marshmallow on the spoon and readily popping it into his mouth. “I prefer the ones in the Bounty Hunter Academy, though.”

“...” Mayuzumi lifted his coffee cup and took a quick sip, his eyes momentarily wandering through the maid café’s interior. “I’ve been wondering about that. If you wanted to run away from home and finally be free from that psychotic bitch and the lunatic she calls ‘honey’, why go as far as to join the Bounty Hunter Academy? Couldn’t you just kill them and part ways with Bounties and Bounty Hunters for the rest of your life?”

“I… guess I could have,” confessed Kuroko, putting his spoon back on the small plate. He lifted his head and looked straight at Mayuzumi’s eyes. “But if I kill my parents, I would officially become a Bounty. Maybe not in society’s standards, but I would never have peace of mind ever again. They may be scum, they may be the worst at parenting… but they’re still my parents. I could never bring myself to kill them. And if it ever reaches the point where I’m forced to take such actions, I… wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for it…”

“You’re too much of a softie,” spewed Mayuzumi, tightening his gaze as he closely observed the bluenette. “You should have done it while you had the chance. Now they’ll spend the rest of their lives trying to catch you, even if it’ll lead them to their deaths. You said it right. They’re scum and terrible parents, but they’re extremely proud of the little monster they birthed. They really want their son to return.”

“...They want their murder tool back, not their son…” mumbled Kuroko, his hands closing into tight fists. “If they’re so desperate to get a weapon, they have countless of them at their disposal. Dad can easily buy whichever weapon suits their plans the best through the Black Market. They don’t need me nor do they want  _ me _ . They’re just childishly pouting at the fact I run away from them and foiled 90% of their future schemes.”

“That analytical skill of yours is probably the only thing about your personality that is suitable for your family’s trade,” scoffed Mayuzumi, a small knowing smirk lightly pulling the corner of his lips upwards.”But well, as I said earlier, I could care less if you return to your mommy and daddy or if you become a Bounty Hunter. It’s none of my business what you do with your life. But as your ‘older brother’, I feel slightly compelled into warning you about something.”

“...”

“You’ll never be able to graduate the Bounty Hunter Academy,” said Mayuzumi, his expressionless demeanour getting an extremely serious connotation to it. “In the off chance you do manage to graduate, you won’t last as a Bounty Hunter. Your personality sucks as a villain, yes, but you’re not hero material either. You daily murder your parents’ teachings and replace them with the illusions of ‘good’ they preach at the Bounty Hunter Academy. But how long will you be able to keep that up, Tetsuya? You’ve seen the dark side of the world. You can’t pretend it’s not there for the rest of your life. But ‘good’ and ‘justice’ always have their limits. If they cross those lines, they become ‘evil’ and ‘crime’. What will you do when you reach your limit as a Bounty Hunter? Will you keep on murdering your past? Oh right… You hate the act of killing, don’t you? You’re in a quite sticky situation now, I see.”

“Mayu-nii, why did you come here?” asked Kuroko, a small glare on his passive demeanour. “If you plan to convince me to return with you, please give up on it. I’m not going to return. Ever. If you just want to taunt and annoy me, I’m leaving. I probably have someone running around throughout the entire town in search for me.”

“Now, now. No need to get so angry,” conceded Mayuzumi, raising his hands in the air in submission. “It was just some friendly advice from your loving older brother. I would rather receive a ‘thank you, Onii-chan, I love you <3’ than a glare, but just a little sign of acknowledgement would have also been enough.”

“Please excuse me,” deadpanned Kuroko, getting up from his seat.

“Wait!” intervened Mayuzumi, quickly getting a hold of Kuroko’s wrist to prevent him from truly leaving. “I told you that your mother asked me to get you back, right? And I also said that I wouldn’t do anything of the sort. I won’t do it because I’m also leaving the underworld business.”

“What…?” croaked Kuroko, his eyes wide open in surprise. With the shock of those words, his body slumped down back to the chair, his mouth remained slightly open in a voiceless interrogatory.

“After years of unsuccessful searching, I finally managed to find my biological family,” explained Mayuzumi. “I discovered them a few weeks after you left and, last month, I tried to enter in contact with them. They don’t know that I work with Bounties and, if possible, I want to keep it as such. That’s why I’m going to quit the trade and join my real family’s business.”

“Really…? You really found them?” asked Kuroko, still very much taken aback by that sudden and fully unexpected news. “How…?”

“It’s a quite long story and I don’t think neither of us has enough free time to get down to it,” dismissed Mayuzumi, taking another sip of his coffee afterwards. “You may have found my earlier words a taunt or a way to get on your nerves, but those words are sort of directed at myself too. I’m not confident that I’ll be able to fully wash my hands off of it in the long run. So I came to see you. I wanted to see someone who escaped from the dark world and how their life on the light side was going.”

“I… see…” acknowledged Kuroko, his brain giving the final turns and twists to fully understand Mayuzumi’s situation. “Well… I don’t think my life changed all that much since I left my parents. I sleep, eat and train, same as before. But… now I’m surrounded by people who genuinely care about me and view me as a friend, rather than a tool. I’m still the same Kuroko Tetsuya from before, but those around me have definitely changed for the better. I’m having quite a lot of fun with all of them and our endless misadventures in the Bounty Hunter Academy.”

“Is that so?” said Mayuzumi, closely observing the bright smile that popped out on Kuroko’s face as he told him a little bit about his new life. A small smile also ended up escaping to his lips as he motioned his hand forward and gently ruffled the bluenette’s head. “I’m happy for you.”

“I hope you also-”

“AHHH!” yelped Mayuzumi in pain when his wrist was suddenly twisted backwards and his hand pushed away from the top of Kuroko’s head.

“You stood me up without any warning just so you could go flirt with another man,” said Akashi, coldly staring at Kuroko as he kept a firm wristlock on the unknown male. “You sure have guts, Tetsuya.”

“A-Akashi-kun…!” Kuroko got up from his seat with a jump, his eyes once again going wide open in surprise. “W-Wait! Please let him go. You’re going to break his wrist!”

“Are you sure you’re in the right position to be siding with him, Tetsuya?” inquired Akashi, a deep frown creasing his brows. “Be quiet and stay put. We’ll have a lot of time to talk after I’m done with him.”

“You’re taking it too far, Akashi-kun,” warned Kuroko as he grabbed onto the redhead’s arm and tugged at it. “Let him go.”

“...” Those words only intensified Akashi's frown. As if a whiplash, he released the unknown male's wrist and replaced it with a strong grip to Kuroko's hand. "Let's go." 

"Ah…! Um…" babbled Kuroko, his eyes indecisively switching back and forth between Akashi and Mayuzumi as he was dragged out of the maid café.

_ Ugh, now I've done it… I didn't expect Akashi-kun to get this angry…  _

-.-

"Akashi-kun, please calm down and listen to me," tried Kuroko for the hundredth time, still being strongly pulled by his hand through the dormitory's corridor. "Okay, yes, I shouldn't have disappeared without saying anything. It was wrong of me and I'm sorry if I caused unnecessary concern in you."

"..."

"But the circumstances didn't exactly let me warn you before I went with him…" continued Kuroko, Akashi's total silence getting him more and more nervous. "He's… Um… He's an old acquaintance of mine and all he wanted was to-" 

"So you're going back to your old lifestyle?" nearly hissed Akashi, throwing a glare at the bluenette by looking over his shoulder. "Bad habits really die hard, don't they?" 

"No, that's not it!" yelped Kuroko, his body shuddering at Akashi's cold gaze. He was now starting to fear that his current intentions were taking him to Shirogane, the Headmaster, and tell him that Kuroko was having secret meetings with his Bounty acquaintances. "We just met by chance! No, Mayu-nii actually just wanted to check on how I was doing because he's about to do the same thing I did! I would never-"

"All I can hear right now is excuse after excuse," interrupted Akashi once again, finally stopping in front of his dorm room and quickly unlocking the door. He then gave a strong yank to Kuroko's arm and pushed him inside of the room, the strength put on it making him stumble on the floor. "But the facts are the facts. Did you or did you not meet with someone involved in your previous criminal lifestyle?"

"I did but-"

"Did you or did you not choose to simply disappear without telling me anything rather than openly admit you would be talking with an acquaintance?" questioned Akashi right away, not giving Kuroko enough time to develop his explanations further than a confirmation or a denial. He closed the door and crouched down his body, his heterochromatic eyes sternly observing the half-frightened bluenette.

"Yes, but it was because-"

"If something bad or illegal wasn't going on, then why are you feeling so guilty right now, Tetsuya?" pointed out Akashi, tilting his head just the slightest as he maintained his gaze perpetually on Kuroko. "Why are you trying to make excuses for everything I say?" 

"It's because you're making me feel as if I'm a criminal just because I talked with someone I consider family!" yelled Kuroko, his hands closing into tight fists. "I'm not making excuses, I'm only telling you things as they are but you refuse to listen to anything I say! I guess when it comes down to it, all I am in your eyes is the son of two Bounties, aren't I? That's the only fact you can trust and all of your following assumptions are based purely on it rather than the months we spent together!"

"Your family hired assassins to kill you and now you're having secret meetings and conversations with them?" said Akashi, the anger in his voice making Kuroko visibly flinch. "If I'm making assumptions, then it's because I don't have enough information on me to be able to back you up on your explanations. All I know is that you suddenly disappeared without saying anything and when I found you, you were happily talking with one of the people that tried to kill you because you're supposedly trying to find a better life. Knowing that, what other conclusions would I reach other than you're going to return to their side? What guarantees do I have that you're not planning on abandoning the Bounty Hunter Academy and return to your family?"

"Trust, maybe?" softly breathed Kuroko, his shoulders slumping down just the slightest. A small, strained smile slowly morphed in his lips. "But no one would ever trust a criminal. A murderer. The son of Bounties… You do evil once and everything that follows will never be good. Maybe Mayu-nii is right on what he says…"

"..."

"For convenience's sake, let's say you're right," said Kuroko, slowly lifting his gaze and looking straight to Akashi's eyes. "What would you do about it? Are you going to take me to Shirogane-san and tell him I've met with Mayu-nii? Are you going to follow me around 24/7 once again to check your assumptions? Rather than be subjected to the humiliation of being persecuted by the friends that should trust my word over their own misguided assumptions, I would prefer to leave this place and pretend that I had been fully accepted for what I am, not what others think I am, for once in my life!!"

"Leave?" repeated Akashi, leaning his body closer to Kuroko’s and putting his hands on the floor on either side of his body. “Whether because you want to go back to your family or because you got tired of playing Bounty Hunter, you are not allowed to leave, Tetsuya.”

“S-Shirogane-san has the right to order me to stay or leave,” said Kuroko, another shudder going down his spine. Akashi’s mismatched gaze was so intense that he could only move his body enough to keep on breathing. “What makes you think you’re the same?”

“I  _ hate _ you,” shortly answered Akashi, the frown on his features softening slightly. “Because I  _ hate _ you so very much.”

“...!” If before all that Kuroko could do was breath, then now all he wished was that he could not. It was so very much like Akashi to be able to completely crush someone just by uttering three simple words. Only that Kuroko never expected to be on the receiving end of it. He never wanted to be on the receiving end.

It was the perfect finishing blow. Avert those red and golden eyes and look down to the floor, keep the heartbreak inside of his chest and not let the tears be set free, avoid showing how weak he was against those words and how much they were stabbing at his feelings - that was the only thing Kuroko could do to keep himself alive.

“I  _ hate _ you so much that I no longer know what to do,” confessed Akashi, straightening his upper body and then sitting down on the floor in front of the bluenette. “When I wake up every morning, it’s like I have a dark cloud stuck inside of my lungs. I can only breathe easy once again when I break into your room and see you oversleeping in your bed. I keep having this unnerving ticklish feeling in my stomach when you’re not around. Who knows if your parents aren’t planning another assassination attempt or a kidnapping? It’s been months since they sent those men. They could give it another try at any time now. Thinking like that only makes my stomach feel even more ticklish and prickly.”

“...eh?” hesitantly interjected Kuroko, his voice nothing more than a soft whisper. Slowly, he lifted his head and peeked at the redhead.

“Whenever Daiki and Satsuki are sticking close to you, I feel like tearing them into pieces,” continued Akashi, pouring out everything he had been bottling up since his first day on the Bounty Hunter Academy. “Even Nijimura-san gets on my nerves when he pushes you too much during training sessions and you end up or collapsing or vomiting. And now what? You’re meeting with people from the past that you’re trying to set yourself free from? ‘Mayu-nii’? I should have broken his wrist, followed by all other 205 bones in his body!”

“W-Wai-”

“I  _ hate _ you, Tetsuya!” yelled Akashi, completely silencing the bluenette as he was about to speak. “Since I’ve met you, I’ve been feeling nothing but awfully dark and negative emotions! And I can’t even understand what exactly have you done to me to make me feel like this! When you’re peacefully sleeping in your bed, I want to touch you so badly that it drives me insane. When you happily accept the milkshakes the other guys buy you, I want to rip it away from you and get the portion you drank out of your body. When you’re training with Daiki, I want to be the one pushing you down on the mattress. I’ve lost count of how many times I nearly knocked Daiki out myself so you wouldn’t have any sparring partner. I-”

“P-Please wait a moment…!!” interrupted Kuroko, lunging his hands forward and slapping them on top of Akashi’s mouth to seal it. He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander around their surroundings at how flustered he felt at the moment. “I… don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Hate? You hate me? But everything you’re saying sounds like…”

_ A confession… _ , inwardly finished Kuroko, his entire face exploding into a myriad of shades of red and crimson, from his cheeks down to the back of his neck.

“...Tetsuya?” called Akashi after having removed the bluenette’s hands from his mouth. He leaned his body forward, attempting to take another glimpse of the expression that Kuroko was now so desperately trying to hide.

“Um… J-Just hold on for a l-little bit…” requested Kuroko, turning his body around so he could escape Akashi’s curious gaze. He took a couple of quick deep breaths, an attempt to try to reign in his maddening heartbeat, and then lightly cleared his throat. “A-Akashi-kun, do you hate Mayu-nii?”

“I do,” readily answered Akashi, no hesitation, no momentary thinking on the question. “I truly regret not having left him incapacitated for a few months or, best case scenario, for life.”

“Then… do you also want to break my bones and leave me incapacitated for life?” asked Kuroko next, part of him feeling slightly concerned over Mayuzumi’s future well being if they were to meet once again.

“Why would I want to do something like that to you?” asked back Akashi, an eyebrow arched in surprise at those words. How could Kuroko even fathom the idea that he could hurt him in such ways? No, hurt him in  _ any _ way.

“But you just said that you hate both Mayu-nii and I, right?” pointed out Kuroko, his brain steadily getting more and more lost amid this messy back and forth conversation. “Or is it that you hate him more than you hate me?”

“Tetsuya, you’re making no sense whatsoever right now,” sighed Akashi, slowly crawling closer to the bluenette to return to a frontal position with him.

“You’re the one who’s making no sense here!” said Kuroko in a quite frustrated manner, tightly closing his eyes as he spoke that accusation. “You claim to hate me, but then right after, you say that you’re constantly worrying about my well being, want to look after me and help me when needed, feel jealous when others are around me and want to keep them away from me! That’s not hating someone… That’s being in l-love with that person!”

“There’s no way love can cause such twisted, dark emotions,” scoffed Akashi, shaking his head just the slightest in denial.

“Do you seriously believe that being in love is all sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and unicorns?” deadpanned Kuroko, his voice muffled due to having slapped both of his hands straight on his own face.

“Yes,” confessed Akashi, once again showing absolutely no hesitation on his claims.

“Are you perhaps just an idiot who’s really good at pretending to be a genius?” groaned Kuroko, finally sinking in utter despair and exasperation. “Or are you just completely oblivious over basic human emotions? Either way it goes, you probably have the emotional spectrum of a kindergarten child. How could you even confuse love with hate…?”

“Now it’s you who’s going too far with your grumbling, Tetsuya,” warned Akashi, a pouting frown lightly creasing his brows.

“You’re the one who went too far!” yelled Kuroko, removing his hands from his face and revealing his tear-stained teal eyes. “Do you have any idea how much it hurt me to hear you so blatantly admit that you hate me!? I felt like I was dying inside when you said you hated me so very much! You’re an idiot, Akashi-kun! I’m the one who should hate you so very much! ...No, I already do… I  _ hate _ you. I really  _ hate _ you…”

“Tetsuya…” gently called Akashi, motioning his hand forward and carefully wiping the tears going down Kuroko’s pale cheeks with the pads of his fingers. He then tenderly cupped the side of his face, readily erasing the tears as they were threatening to exit his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I said all of that, I only considered my position on the whole situation. I got too focused on finally being able to confess what I’d been bottling up for months and didn’t take into account how you’d react to it. It was an ‘in the heat of the moment’ thing… but I did mean every single word. I’m sorry for hurting you but I’m not sorry for having said what I said.”

“You’d be a better Bounty than me…” said Kuroko in between soft sniffs. “I seriously feel like punching you right now… but I’m too hungry and tired to do it. Please get ready to open up your wallet and indulge my vanilla milkshake addiction as compensation for the foreseeable future.”

“I’ll gladly do it, even if no compensation is involved,” acknowledged Akashi, warmly smiling as he took a better hold of his face. “Because I  _ hate _ you, Tetsuya.”

A small movement was all it took for Akashi’s lips to meet with Kuroko’s. It was a gentle kiss, one that couldn’t be squeezed out of even one small drop of hate.

-.-

With a soft sigh, Mayuzumi removed the earphones and placed them on top of his laptop’s keyboard.

“Really, just how bottomless of a surprise box are you, Tetsuya?” snorted Mayuzumi, strongly pressing down on the enter button and turning off the extremely small listening device he had slipped inside of Kuroko’s clothes while dragging him to the back alley. “It might be a bitter pill for you to swallow, but you’re just like your mother, the way you so easily sweep men off of their feet without really meaning to.”

He quickly turned off the laptop too and shoved it inside of his backpack. As he leisurely sipped his third black coffee since he arrived at the maid café, Mayuzumi took his cell phone from his jacket’s pocket and opened the texting app.

_ Sorry, Tetsuya, but I’ll have to use you, after all. You’ll be the perfect bait to bind Akashi Seijuurou to the Bounty Hunter trade for the rest of his life and officially have him disinherited from the main branch of the Akashi family. Also... dead people don’t need their tongues so you’ll be able to make your parents happy one last time. _


	3. No matter how improbable

“Akashi-kun, we live in the same dorm and we already passed by your room,” sighed Kuroko, shyly looking sideways at the redhead as they came to a stop in front of his room. “You didn’t need to walk me to my room. I won’t get lost on my own.”

“We’re dating now,” pointed out Akashi, inwardly chuckling at the slight dissatisfaction hidden underneath a mask of expressionless. “I thought it would be good to do something like this.”

“Just because we’re d-dating, it doesn’t mean I have to be treated as if a girl,” deadpanned Kuroko - though he still choked a little bit on his own words when a certain change in their relationship status was mentioned. “I’m a man, I hope you haven’t forgotten about that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” sighed Akashi. He took a few steps forward and leaned his body against Kuroko’s, closing his escape routes by trapping him against the closed door. “Since we’re dating, I can now openly stalk you everywhere you go. I no longer need to throw excuses like following Nijimura-san’s instructions or certifying myself that you won’t get attacked by anyone. I can just say that I want to spend more time with you and walking you to your room is the best way to obtain such at the moment. Such a pity that your room is further away from the entrance door than mine, isn’t it?”

“Ugh…” Kuroko felt his entire face explode in a blush at hearing those words (the close proximity between them may or may not have also helped such a miracle to happen) and couldn’t help but avert Akashi’s mischievous gaze. “Then… only until school starts again. Right now, it’s pretty much just the two of us staying at the dorm. But once classes start, I have the feeling that Aomine-kun and Momoi-san would want to copy you if they saw you doing it even once.”

“Maybe I should start knocking Daiki out…” mumbled Akashi to himself, though still loud enough to be audible by Kuroko. “Satsuki would definitely look after him if he were to be put unconscious.”

“If you’re willing to go that far, then you might as well find a way to change my sparring partner,” deadpanned Kuroko, lifting his gaze to look at the redhead. When he did, however, the expression he found in Akashi’s face didn’t please in the least. If anything, it made Kuroko regret having said those very same words. “Um… B-But yes, knocking Aomine-kun out could also work quite well.”

“You’ve already said it so just own up to it, Tetsuya,” said Akashi, his mischievous smirk growing exponentially. He leaned his face forward and gently kissed Kuroko’s cheek, extremely close to the corner of his lips. “Let’s do our best in looking after one another from today onwards, my most  _ hated _ Tetsuya. In all sorts of ways.”

“I’m starting to think that dating you might be a bit too dangerous for my bodily integrity…” mumbled Kuroko, his cheeks once again perking up to a rosy colouring. “You definitely have some dubious intentions with what you just said.”

“Who wouldn’t?” pointed out Akashi after a few chuckles. He gave one more peck to the bluenette’s lips and then gave a few steps back, finally tearing their bodies apart. “But not now. Definitely not right now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Tetsuya.”

“If you want to break and enter in my room tomorrow too, at least do it after 10 AM,” said Kuroko, a small smile on his lips as he observed Akashi’s happy semblance. “I want to use this small vacation period to make up for the sleep I’ve lost during the final exams.”

“Then I’ll just sneak into your bed as soon as I wake up and let you sleep until that hour,” acknowledged Akashi, his angelic smile widening even further despite those lips uttering such devilish claims. “Have a good night.”

“Goodnight to you too…” sighed Kuroko, his teal eyes following Akashi as he walked back to his dorm room. Once he was at a considerable distance, Kuroko sighed once again. “I need to do something about this personality trait of his… As fast as possible, or my body will be in danger…”

With those mumbles out of his consciousness, Kuroko also stepped inside of his room, nearly fully dark due to the closed curtains. He turned the ceiling light on and walked over to his wardrobe, where he neatly placed his jacket. As he walked to his desk, intending on reading one more novel throughout the night until sleep started knocking on his eyelids, he decided to give a quick check to his email address.

Curiously, he had gotten an email from an unknown sender not even one hour ago.

_ I’ll be leaving this town early tomorrow morning. Meet with me one last time before I leave to go live with my real family. I’ll be waiting for you in front of the main gate of the Bounty Hunter Academy in half an hour. _

_ M _

“...” Kuroko’s body completely halted as he read that email. After the way they parted in the morning, he never thought that Mayuzumi would try to contact him again so soon or, to be more precise, ever again.

However, the actual main topic of their conversation was also something that Kuroko never expected to hear coming out Mayuzumi’s mouth.

In terms of Bounties and illegal activities, Mayuzumi was the exact same as Kuroko, had been taught the exact same things as Kuroko and operated in the exact same way as Kuroko. If there was a difference between them, it was that Mayuzumi never felt any guilt or remorse over killing other people. The two had been born with the same gift of silent assassination but only Mayuzumi had ever welcomed and embraced the trait. Kuroko had given it use because he had no other option at the time but he did discard it as soon as he had the opportunity. He had won the high-risk bet he carefully placed and cut off the main strings attaching him to the underworld and Bounties.

The only strings that now still directly connected him to Bounties were his lingering feelings for his family and those who he had spent so much time with while growing up. Even if his parents wanted him dead, Kuroko still viewed them as family. Whether Mayuzumi truly wanted to throw away his past to return to his real family or not, Kuroko still viewed him as an older brother.

And there was little that could change those lingering feelings of his.

“Own up to it… huh…” softly whispered Kuroko, his teal eyes still stuck to his cell phone’s screen.

Without any warning, Kuroko slammed his cell phone on his desk and turned around on his heels, darting towards his wardrobe once again and quickly putting his jacket back on. He then ran off of his room, slamming his door shut as silently as his hurry enabled him to.

He quickly ran down the corridor and exited the dorm building. But rather than continue down the cement path that would lead him to the main entrance gate, Kuroko turned left and quietly ran beside the outside wall of the dorm. Once he reached the back, he climbed over the railing and jumped inside the emergency stairs.

Each step he took, Kuroko inwardly prayed. He prayed for a mistake. He prayed for a misread sentence. He prayed for his gut instinct to be wrong.

But he wasn’t.

“You’re no fun, Tetsuya,” sighed Mayuzumi, lowering the sniper rifle and letting it dangle beside his body. “All you had to do was go to the main gate and let yourself be silently shot. I wasn’t even going to aim at your vitals, just your leg. I can’t have you dying too quickly, unfortunately. ...How did you know?”

“Because we’re the same,” said Kuroko, a small, saddened smile on his lips as he walked towards Mayuzumi’s back. “Since I left, I only thought about going to see any of you when I’m to capture you as a Bounty Hunter. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have any reason to go meet with you. Even if you abandoned the path of a criminal and returned to the light world, I wouldn’t go see you. And I know you think the same way as me.”

“...”

“What’s the true reason for coming to see me, Mayu-nii?” asked Kuroko after long minutes of silence. “If you had come because my parents asked you to kill me or to take me back to them, you would have just done it without letting your presence in this town be known. But you purposedly approached me. You wanted something out of me that wasn’t related to my parents’ request to have me killed. Or, at least, it wasn’t in the beginning…”

“I really despise your analytical skills…” spewed Mayuzumi, throwing the rifle to the ground of the rooftop and turning around to face the bluenette. “You’re right. I approached you because I wanted some information on a certain student attending the same school as you. That was all I initially wanted. But your unpredictability gave me a change of heart regarding your parents’ request. You gave me the chance to successfully pursue my revenge while shutting up your mother’s whining once and for all.”

“Mayu-nii, you didn’t seriously think that I would ever betray the school that gave me a second chance in life and those in it, right?” said Kuroko, a small frown creasing his brows. “If you did, then you doomed your plans to failure from the start.”

“I didn’t expect you to tell me shit, don’t worry,” laughed Mayuzumi, a smirk appearing on his lips amid his expressionlessness. “But the small bug I slipped into your clothes this morning is a different story. Tell me, Tetsuya, how did it feel to kiss Akashi Seijuurou?”

“...!” Kuroko’s face momentarily lapsed to a shocked expression, but quickly returned to a frowning one, this time with a glint of anger to it. “What does Akashi-kun have to do with your revenge?”

“As an individual, absolutely nothing,” said Mayuzumi, taking a handgun from the hem of his pants in a fraction of a second. He readily pointed it at Kuroko. “But he had the bad luck of being born as the solemn heir to the Akashi family. If he hadn’t, so many things would have been different. In my life, in your life and the lives of countless others. If I want to annihilate the Akashi family, I should start by cutting off the little bud called ‘offsprings’, right?”

Despite not having heard more than a  _ puff _ , Kuroko jumped away from the location he had been listening to Mayuzumi. The sound of metal scraping against the rooftop’s floor reached his ears a second later.

“Akashi-kun left his family when he became a student in the Bounty Hunter Academy!” pointed out Kuroko, continuing to run in a semi-circle to avoid the gunshots while steadily growing closer to Mayuzumi’s location. “His father disowned him and excluded him of all rights that his family might hold!”

“In word only, though,” announced Mayuzumi, carefully aiming for the bluenette’s legs to put an end to the needless run. “His name is still appointed as the heir to all companies that belong to the Akashi family, as well as all assets the main family possesses, be it land, buildings, stocks or money. Do you think that an old-fashioned family like the Akashi would give up its solemn heir just like that? Sure, if they had an heir B to occupy the empty place, then Akashi Seijuurou wouldn’t even have arrived at this school alive. But they have nothing and his father is probably way too old to get remarried and have another son without giving away to rival corporations that there are problems in the continuity of the family lineage. His father and grandparents are just waiting for the right opportunity to pull him out of here and have him follow their life plan as the heir. And I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to completely ruin those plans of theirs.”

“Why? Why do you hate the Akashi family this much?” asked Kuroko, coming to a sudden halt to his running and abruptly changing directions. It saved him from a possible gunshot but all this moving around was starting to take its toll on his stamina. He probably would only be able to keep it up for a few more minutes. “You don’t even know Akashi-kun, why do you want to use him as a stepping stone for your revenge on his family? He probably dislikes all of them just as much as you do.”

“That has nothing to do with you, Tetsuya,” said Mayuzumi, inwardly clicking his tongue as he quickly changed the handgun’s magazine and reloaded it with more bullets. “I’m not the type of villain that explains his whole plan while fighting against the good guys. Everything I told you up until this point is my last gift to you as your ‘older brother’. I want you to die knowing why you got brutally murdered by me!”

“No, thank you, I don’t need a gift like that,” said Kuroko, popping out of the blue right in front of Mayuzumi. He lunged his hand forward and grabbed the silencer attached to the handgun’s muzzle. Then, with a well-placed strike with the base of the palm of his other hand, he broke the round piece keeping the two parts stuck together.

When Mayuzumi fired the handgun to scare Kuroko away from near him, the gunshot loudly cut through the night’s silence.

“Shit, you schemy asshole,” cursed Mayuzumi, angrily throwing the handgun away from them and taking a hold of the bluenette’s clothes. With a kick to the side of his legs, Mayuzumi easily threw Kuroko off of his balance and fell on top of his smaller body to keep him still in one location only. “Not that a single gunshot will help you that much, to be honest.”

“Are you sure about that?” asked Kuroko, a small knowing smirk on his features as he looked straight at Mayuzumi’s lifeless eyes. “Since the first assassination attempt, Shirogane-san has raised the security levels around the dorms and main school buildings… especially during the night.”

“Heh! Then I just need to be quick at slaughtering you,” scoffed Mayuzumi, a large knife appearing on his hand seemingly out of nowhere. With no hesitation or second thoughts, he lunged the knife towards the bluenette’s torso.

“Ngh!” Luckily, Kuroko was quick enough to grab the knife before it could penetrate his chest. Unluckily for him, he grabbed the knife by the blade rather than by the handle or Mayuzumi’s arm. Warm blood ran down his hands and wrists but that didn’t stop him from fighting against the pressure Mayuzumi was putting on the knife so it could reach its intended target. “Why… do you want to kill me… if your target is Akashi-kun?”

“If your boyfriend got murdered beyond recognition by an unknown Bounty, wouldn’t you make your lifetime mission to slay all of them as a Bounty Hunter, throwing away everything else you may have?” pointed out Mayuzumi, leaning his upper body forward to put even more strength on the stabbing. Kuroko wasn’t the strongest human being in the world, his hands would eventually give out from the pain and blood loss and the knife would smoothly perforate his lung - he would have enough time to further cut up and mutilate his body before Kuroko breathed his last. “Let me kill you so that exact boyfriend of yours may pursue vengeance for the rest of his life rather than return to his family. Oh, of course, I won’t forget to take your tongue with me like your mother requested me to.”

“Ghh…!” Kuroko gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. Then, he released the blade of the knife - as soon as he did so, he felt steel cutting down on his flesh, even though he tried to pull his torso as further away from its trajectory as his pinned down body could. A pained scream got stuck on his throat but, even so, he focused all of his remaining strength on his knee so he could shove it against Mayuzumi’s stomach.

“Ack!” The impact on his stomach made Mayuzumi’s body wobble backwards and the knife smoothly slipped out of Kuroko’s torso. As he was about to lung the knife down a second time, the bluenette turned his body around. It was the final move to fully break his form and cause his stabbing stance to become fully out of balance. Mayuzumi also rolled his body against the rooftop’s floor, the movement only stopping a few metres away from the laid down bluenette.

“Haa… What you just told me… haa… was everything… I needed… haa… to know…” said Kuroko, trying to keep his breathing rhythm as shallow as he could while standing up with slow, wobbly motions. He placed his good hand on top of the stabbing wound on his chest and placed pressure on it, slowly walking further and further away from Mayuzumi. “The next time… haa… I see you…  _ Mayuzumi-san _ … haa… it’ll be as Bounty… haa… ngh… and Bounty Hunter…”

“There won’t be a next time because I’ll finish you off right now, Tetsuya!” yelled Mayuzumi, getting up with a single jump and running towards Kuroko, the knife in his hand ready to strike at the smallest of opportunities. He didn’t get there on time, however.

Kuroko reached the edge of the rooftop and allowed his tired body to fall backwards. If he hadn’t spent a nearly full year as a student of that school and occupant of that dorm, he would be jumping out of a rooftop to his own death. But as a student, as a possible target of assassinations, he knew full well that he would be falling right on top of a green-leaved tree. It would hurt, yes, but much less than becoming a bloodied pancake on cement.

“Ahhh!” screamed Kuroko, as the hard, pointy branches hit and opened further his wounds on his bumpy fall on the grass. When he opened his eyes and looked towards the dorm’s roof, he could see a shadow hoovering its edge… but the lights approaching made it so that the shadow couldn’t interfere further.

“I heard some noises over here!”

“I’ll back you up from here.”

  
_ Ahh… I think Akashi-kun will yell at me again when he finds out I’ve been sneaking around on my own right after he admonished me about having done it today…, _ inwardly mumbled Kuroko, closing his eyes a second time after making sure that he had been spotted by the security guards.


	4. Must be the truth

“Tetsuya!!” yelled Akashi, opening the sliding door of the hospital room with such strength that the whole wall trembled with the impact. Despite the warnings and admonishments of the nurse accompanying him to the right room, the redhead ran towards the bed with no regards to the noise he was causing. “What happened last night!? When I went to your room earlier, it was empty. I went directly to Shirogane-san and he told me you were taken to the hospital by ambulance but didn’t give me any other details about it. What happened? You’re all cut up and bandaged.”

“Um…” hesitantly started Kuroko, his cheeks pinkish by how tenderly Akashi was caressing his scratched face. “I guess… it was just the same thing as last time…”

“Tetsuya, tell me every single detail of what happened last night after I went to my room,” said Akashi, his heterochromatic eyes extremely serious as he stared deep into the bluenette’s teal ones. After a few more caresses to his pale face, he let his hand fall on top of Kuroko’s bandaged hand while pushing a closeby chair with his free hand to take a seat next to the patient’s bed. “I’m not leaving until I hear all about it. Do you understand?”

“There’s not much to it, really…” sighed Kuroko, his gaze lowering to the bedsheets covering his half sat down, half laid down body. He gulped down hard in a masked way and opened his mouth to start narrating the story. “I… was feeling too excited about everything that had happened yesterday and couldn’t focus on my usual nighttime reading, so I decided to go for a walk. When I went to the rooftop of the dorm, I coincidentally bumped into… one more assassin hired by my parents. He making some preparations for the next assassination attempt there. Well, the result is as you can see.”

“Were you too hurt?” worriedly asked Akashi, his eyes quickly scanning the bluenette on his entirety and then returning to his face.

“Ah… Just a few scratches here and there…” mumbled Kuroko, averting the redhead’s gaze at the speed of light. When he felt Akashi’s intense suspicious gaze starting to bore a hole through him, he couldn’t help but groan. “Plus six stitches on the palm of my right hand, eleven stitches on the stab wound on my chest, three broken ribs from falling from the rooftop into a tree and a slight concussion…”

“Tetsuya, I’ve warned you again and again. Why can’t you just listen to what I tell you?” sighed Akashi in utter exasperation, a clear pained expression on his face. “Should I start handcuffing you to your bed to make sure you stop going on night walks, which has proven to be possibly fatal? Put an electronic tag on your ankle to know your precise location every time you magically disappear all on your own?”

“You’re blowing things out of proportion, Akashi-kun,” said Kuroko, forcing himself to lightly smile at the redhead’s weird overprotective suggestions. “The school grounds are extremely safe right now due to the heavy security around the dorms and the main school buildings.”

“Heavy security isn’t doing much then, or you wouldn’t be in the hospital right now,” pointed out Akashi, his gaze tightening for brief seconds when a deep frown popped out on his features. He then sighed, gently rubbing his thumb on the ligature covering Kuroko’s hand. “Tetsuya, if you don’t take measures to protect yourself, then those who care about you will do it, whether you agree with them or are strongly against them. You need to start taking better care of yourself. Or do you now want me to also get sleep-deprived due to worrying about whether or not you went for a night walk and got attacked again?”

“I understand what you’re trying to say but…” acknowledged Kuroko, though his semblance was quite saddened while he spoke his next words. “I just want to be a regular student. I want to walk around the school grounds or go to the town centre and not have to worry about being suddenly attacked. Actually, just being able to go outside without having others following me around would be nice…”

“If that’s what you want, then you need to work towards it,” declared Akashi, motioning his hands forward and gently cupping Kuroko’s features. “Taking rash actions like walking on your own or sneaking around without saying anything to anyone will only give your parents more chances of succeeding with their plans. You told me you wanted to stop them, right? Then you need to be patient and become a Bounty Hunter. You need to grow stronger. You need to stay beside your new alleys and let them help you, protect you as you walk down the path you want. You dying wouldn’t be good for anyone, would it?”

“Nn…” acknowledged Kuroko, giving a small nod with his head.

“For as long as you understand that, then I will stop nagging you about it,” said Akashi, softly smiling as he gently released the bluenette’s face. “I have one more question about it, though. What happened to the assassin?”

“He ran away after I fell down from the rooftop,” explained Kuroko, lightly adjusting his bedsheets. “But Nijimura-san is investigating the matter further. If you want more details about the assassin, you should ask him. But I don’t think the assassin left a lot of traces behind, the way Nijimura-san was grumbling to himself after talking with me about the incident.”

“I’ll give Nijimura-san a call then,” acknowledged Akashi with a nod of his head. He got up from the chair and took his cell phone from inside his jacket’s pocket. “I’ll be in the corridor talking with him. If you need anything, just give me a shout and I’ll come back right away.”

“I think I can live without you for a few minutes,” deadpanned Kuroko, which earned him a quick ruffle on his blue locks.

  
_ I don’t want to lie, Akashi-kun, but I must…, _ inwardly apologised Kuroko as he observed Akashi leaving the room and silently closing the door behind himself.  _ I must because it’s just like you said. I need to be patient. I need to become stronger. I need to stay beside my new alleys. If I were to tell you, or anyone else, the truth, you would blame yourself. You would hate and resent your family even more. You would choose to leave me. You need to stay as you are right now. That’s why I will lie. To you, to others and to myself... _

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read more chapters and more fanfictions, including the ones Ao3 has deleted, go [here](https://mafyswritinghut.blogspot.com/). (construction ongoing)  
New blog with all fics, chapters, webnovels and explanations why I decided to not even put a fight and leave Ao3 instead.


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